Cannery Casino Resorts Debuts Pennsylvania Casino Complex

NORTH STRABANE, PENN. -- A Las Vegas casino developer decided to bring a little Vegas to Pennsylvania when it redeveloped the historic Meadows Race Track into an entertainment complex with harness racing, casino, bowling center, lounge and restaurants.

Cannery Casino Resorts invested $450 million to upgrade the race track and build a 350,000-square-foot gaming facility that incorporates CHAUVET lighting fixtures in the casino's Silks Lounge. The grand opening was held in early May.

This project marks the first U.S. installation of CHAUVET's new Legend 4500, a compact 10- or 14-channel intelligent LED moving yoke wash particularly suited for production, stage and architectural applications, with an output comparable to a 300W discharge wash fixture, and full RGBW mixing capability.

“Silks Lounge is smaller than we had hoped, but we're looking at a 200-seat cocktail style lounge and a stage,” said Dave Tenant, director of Technical Entertainment for Cannery Casino Resorts LLC. “We wanted to take the room and bring a little Vegas overkill to it, similar to our One Six Lounge in Las Vegas in which we used CHAUVET fixtures.”

The 10 Legend 4500s are used as stage wash lighting for the 23-foot by 19-foot main stage, said Matt Druzbik, lighting director. “They are nice and bright, the colors are great, they have a nice white and they move quickly,” he said.

Each unit comes fitted with a total of 54 high power RBGW LEDs and a 15° a lens. It produces a long-throw wash, with a beam angle of 10° and a field angle of 22°. An optional 30-degree lens can be swapped into the fixture to respectively provide a tighter or wider beam configuration.

Cannery Casino officials are sold on LED fixtures, Tenant said, and since CHAUVET's LEDs worked so well in the previous installation, he said he didn't give a thought to using another company.

The 1,400-square-foot Silks Lounge features Vegas acts as well as local and New York talent. An Elvis impersonator is scheduled as are the Rat Pack Is Back, which does a tribute to legends Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr.

Reopened May 1, Meadows Race Track was originally built in 1963. Cannery Casino Resorts purchased the property two years ago and immediately erected a tent for gaming, while existing buildings were demolished to make room for the new casino and race track accommodations.

Located about 20 miles south of Pittsburgh in North Strabane, the facility offers 3,700 slot machines, electronic table games, casual and fine dining in three sit-down restaurants, a five-venue food court, live harness racing, a 24-lane bowling center, state-of-the-art Silks Lounge and free parking.